MEMORIAL HISTORY

Kamila Skolimowska Memorial (Memoriał Kamili Skolimowskiej) is an international athletic meeting organized regularly since 2009 by the Kamila Skolimowska Foundation. On May 2, 2009 a “Commemorative Meeting for Kamila” took place at the Warsaw Skra stadium. The idea was to pay homage to the prematurely deceased hammer throw Sydney Olympic champion. At that time, only women and men's hammer throw competitions were held, and the event officially initiated the activities of the Kamila Skolimowska Warsaw Hammer-throw Center. The event was supposed to be a one-off undertaking, however, after a year of break the Foundation's management decided to organize the next edition of the competition in a changed formula - sportsmen and women competed in other athletics competitions apart from the hammer throw. Kamila Skolimowska Foundation's ambassadors and participants of the Memorial from its first edition are Kamila's friends, great stars of world athletics -  Tomasz Majewski and Piotr Małachowski.

The second edition of the Memorial took place on September 20, 2011, at Warsaw's Orzeł stadium. Great atmosphere, a fantastic competition and the possibility of watching such sports legends as Merlene Ottey, Krisztián Pars, Gerd Kanter, Christian Cantwell and Oscar Pistorius in the flesh made the meeting a great success. Since then, the Memorial is organized every year, usually at the end of the athletic season.

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The third Memorial in 2012 brought new variations – it was the debuting year of the Kamila Skolimowska's Little Memorial, where children and youth competed in seven athletics competitions. The meeting itself also achieved a higher level in terms of competition quality - seven Olympic medalists from London took part.

The fourth edition of the competition, for the last time at the stadium of the Warsaw’s “Orzeł” Stadium, was held under the slogan "There is One Sport". The event was of an integrative nature, and one of the strategic partners of the meeting was the State Fund for Rehabilitation of the Disabled. In most disciplines, athletes with disabilities competed alongside athletes without disabilities. The integration of sportsmen with disabilities and non-disabled was also a tribute to the memory of Kamila Skolimowska, who was very keen on honoring disabled athletes.

In 2014, Kamila Skolimowska Memorial took place at the PGE Narodowy Stadium in Warsaw, and the biggest star of the competition was the legendary Usain Bolt, who then established the indoor world record for 100 m (9.98 s). The performance of the fastest man in the world attracted throngs of fans, but Paweł Fajdek turned out to be a black horse of the event, and outshone the grandmaster and showman from Jamaica with a phenomenal hammer throw series.

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Three subsequent editions of the Memorial in 2015-2017 also took place at the largest Polish stadium and every year millions of viewers in front of TV sets and tens of thousands in the stands of PGE Narodowy admired the struggles of top world athletes and applauded numerous records of Poland, Europe and the world being beat, including the wonderful 2016 hammer throw to 82.98 m by Anita Włodarczyk.

There is a special event prepared in addition to the leading athletes’ competition during Kamila Skolimowska Memorial. "Training with Champions" is a chance for hundreds of young adepts to train under the supervision of the biggest athletic champions and their idols at the same time.

Modernization of the Silesian Stadium, perfectly equipped and adapted to hold athletics competitions of the highest rank, allowed for the transfer of this year's, ninth edition of Kamila Skolimowska Memorial to the legendary Chorzów “Witches Cauldron” Stadium.

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The eleventh edition of the LOTTO Kamila Skolimowska Memorial will take place on September 6, 2020 at the Silesian Stadium in Chorzów.

Current information on Kamila Skolimowska Memorial: fundacjakamili.pl/en/about-the-memorial/

MEMORIAL OF KAMILA SKOLIMOWSKA - AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS

2011, 2012 and 2015     the best sports event in Warsaw
2013                               the best athletics meeting held in Poland
2015                               event held as part of the European Week of Sport
2016, 2017                     nomination for the title of the Event of the Year in the plebiscite of Przegląd  Sportowy (the    

                                       oldest polish sports newspaper)